The Dell G3 is part of what Dell are calling their gaming range of laptops. Right now they are ranging from around £849 right up to £1049 on the Dell website, and that’s due to the customisable options you can include at checkout.

The Dell G3 that was sent to us to review is a 17″ laptop, although there are 15″ versions available too. Inside is an Intel i5-8300H clocked at 2.3GHz paired with 8GB RAM memory. I have a nVidia 1050 inside mine but the higher tiered packages come with a 1050TI. For storage you have two options. The 128GB SSD drive which will generally house Windows 10 or Ubuntu depending on your preference and a 1TB HDD for all your software and games.

dell g3 gaming laptop

The laptop itself is generally well built, although to keep the cost down, Dell has decided that plastic is the best option to build out of. a far cry from all the metal and aluminium chassis you see on gaming laptops of late. Still, it looks good with the top and bottom of the laptop being covered in a black, soft to touch smooth material. Inside is very minimal too, with the G3 logo at the top left hand side of the keyboard and a faux carbon fibre-esque pattern. One note, this laptop is an absolute finger print magnet, so make sure you got some kind of microfiber cloth in your bag.

dell g3 gaming laptop

The Dell G3 down the right hand side has a USB 3.0, an SD card reader and a kensington lock security hole, and on the left you can find the power input, HDMI input, an Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 inputs and the headphone/microphone combi-jack. There’s nothing on the back at all and all it houses is the chunky hinge which feels quite substantial which is always nice and there is nothing on the front.

Typing on the keyboard is relatively comfortable, with key spacing just about right. The issue I found is that the keys are rather shallow if you’e coming from a mechanical keyboard on a desktop. It didn’t require much pressure to activate each key, and could serve for some very sensitive touch typing. The keys glow white with a tint of blue for those of you who type in low lighting conditions, or someone with less than perfect eye sight, like me. I’ve seen this model online have blue backlit keys, so I’m not sure what’s going on with my model. I am in the UK however so that could make a difference. There is a subtle blue light surrounding the touchpad however. All in all, it looks quite stylish.

dell g3 gaming laptop

The touchpad is rather large which is great, and it gives you the ability to click the mouse pretty much wherever your finger lands when tracking. However, the travel distance on each click is huge, which poses a problem with Windows as you need to double click icons. Although you can touch double click without making an actual physical click, so it seems a little counter intuitive. I just worry about things like dust and dirt getting stuck inside the pad.

Speaker positioning is also a strange one. They’re on the bottom, at the front of the machine, making the sound bounce off the table or surface you’re on before getting to your ears. They sound okay, but I wouldn’t rely on them when gaming. I would take advantage of the headphone/microphone jack and plug in a gaming headset.

dell g3 gaming laptop

In terms of performance, the Dell G3 17″ laptop is rather good. With a 1,272 score on a Firestrike benchmark, gaming shouldn’t be a problem, especially at medium settings. It absolutely smashed through MOBA games, with Heroes of the Storm being the game of choice. Even the Heaven benchmark on high settings with a 2x anti-aliasing was throwing out 96 max FPS and 42 average. The biggest downfall here though is the screen and the fact it only covers around 64% of the sRGB colour spectrum. Not great if you’re wanting some nice deep colours. Viewing angles however are pretty good.

If you’re going to be gaming on this machine, be prepared to take a charger with you wherever you go, as I managed to squeeze around two hours worth of game time before having to plug back into mains. It’s not bad for a gaming machine to be honest with you. You could extend the battery life by turning the battery power options to minimum usage or by lowering the screen brightness.

dell g3 gaming laptop

The Dell G3 17″ laptop isn’t a bad choice at all if you’re looking for something to casually game on. Of course there are more powerful machines for gaming, but this would definitely scratch an itch if you want to play some less detailed video games like MOBAs or Rocket League or something similar. You could also quite comfortably get through media creation too like image and video editing, and standard work programs like Office, this will run through like a breeze. It’s a little on the heavy side and the charger is large, so bare that in mind if you’re going to be carrying it around. For more information, you can visit the Dell website.